


At Night in the Desert

by boundbyspells



Category: Tamora Pierce - Tortall series
Genre: Gen, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-25
Updated: 2006-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-26 05:37:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/279329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boundbyspells/pseuds/boundbyspells





	At Night in the Desert

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sanyin](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=sanyin).



The desert night was cold, but Alanna felt immersed living flame. Pregnancy always did this to her. "Damn you, George," she murmured, shifting around on her sit-bones, trying to find a position that didn't benumb her rear.

She should sleep, but she had lain staring at the bright desert stars for three hours to no avail. Her internal heat was somewhat to blame, but she was mostly used to it, and really, it beat the alternative of being cold... but the knowledge that this was the Bazhir night of the dead was somewhat... worrying. Her Bazhir escort, Kazmar, hadn't seemed particularly concerned; he'd noted the event with the nonchalance of a man not overly burdened by moral conundrums. Raoul hadn't looked very concerned, either. Alanna, on the other hand, felt that her dead were always waiting for a chance to have a chat.

Eventually, she'd stopped pretending that she was going to sleep, and had sat up; the illusion that she was keeping watch was somehow a comfort, though her magical perimeter alarms were far more effective than her senses. Her sight was damped slightly by the campfire, and she could barely discern the distant mating calls of desert foxes over Raoul and Kazmar's snores.

The babe moved within her. It wasn't a kick--the child wasn't nearly big enough to kick anything yet--and it felt like nothing so much as the fluttering of a wet butterfly. Alanna loved that feeling; it was, perhaps, the only redeeming point of pregnancy. For not only did all the men in her life raise high holy havoc if she tried to fight while pregnant, there was this constant feeling of being consumed by heat. The problem with bearing Gifted children, she supposed.

She decided to try a little exercise. She closed her eyes and cupped her hands in her lap, breathing the excess heat into her hands. It seemed to work. When she opened her eyes, she held a small ball of fidgeting violet flame. She moved her hands slightly, intending to release the ball into the desert sands, until she noticed that the thing had _eyes_.

"Can I help you?" she asked mildly.

The eyes were violet, like the fire, and for a heart-stopping moment, she thought that it was Thom come to visit her; but the color was merely an effect of the fire, as the eyes were joined by a face that she recognized: Alex of Tirragen.

"Alanna," he said, in a weird, wind-whipped way, as though they were atop a mountain.

She quirked a brow at him. "If you've come all this way for an apology... it better be one that you're giving. I don't feel the least bit sorry for killing you. You were a traitor."

"We both know that's not entirely true."

She regarded him silently, stubbornly.

"Forgiveness is the blessing all are granted who pass beneath the Dark God's gaze," Alex said. "Loyalty to kings and princes... seem less important over here. The things I regret now go deeper. The wife I did not marry, the children I did not have..."

"I have no tears for that," Alanna said. "You made your choices."

"Yes. And for what I've lost, I'm sorry that I was a traitor--more sorry that I was such a poor traitor, though. Every great patriot is a traitor to begin with."

"So, this isn't so much a night of redemption, but of irritation."

Alex laughed. "I'm sorry. I'm doing this poorly. But you've always managed to bring out that competitive side to me, Alanna. After your sex was revealed, I wondered... did I guess the truth, in some deep part of me? Was the source of our conflict that I understood what you were and was ashamed to be bested by a girl?"

"I always thought Roger coerced you, in the beginning; it's one of the nicer things I think about you, and you shouldn't try to convince me that you did what you did for worse reasons."

The little ball of fire bobbed with Alex shaking his head. "You're wrong, you know. This is a night of redemption. I came to apologize, as you suggested."

"While novel, I tend to think of apologies from the dead as meaningless; however, I'm not going to sleep tonight, so continue."

"Thank you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I wasn't stronger; that I did not resist the temptations of power; that I gave into petty jealousy; that I did not try harder to be your friend. In the end, you were the best; my death is testament to that. But I know, now, that in the beginning, you were better, too."

Alanna blinked back tears. She'd thought, oftener than she liked, about Alex's death. She wondered, now and again, if she couldn't have just disabled him and let him live. She wondered a lot of things, in the dark of night, when there was only George to hold her and hear her gabbling regrets.

"Thanks, Alex," she choked out.

On the other side of the fire, Raoul of Goldenlake sat bolt upright. With a whoosh, the ball of fire between her hands disappeared. "Who were you talking to?" Raoul asked.

"Just one of my dead," she said. "Back to bed with you, Raoul." He flopped back onto his bedroll without another word.

With somewhat more care, Alanna lay back down. She felt much cooler, refreshed like she had been swimming in a cold lake on a hot summer day, but not cold. She pulled her blanket up over her head and closed her eyes tightly. Even if her mind was not exactly at ease after Alex's visitation, she could probably sleep now--and realized she should, as a defense against any other specters who might choose to drop by.

  



End file.
